This device is related to an electric dental floss device particularly adapted to be used by a handicapped person.
The handicapped persons having arthritis, rheumatism or physical impairments usually occurring in the aged are unable to properly clean their teeth with dental floss. Elderly persons suffer from a deteriorating of teeth and gums due to age and the inability to properly care for their teeth. The inability to use dental floss often results in serious dental decay and deterioration of the teeth and gums which results in a further loss of teeth causing pain and discomfort to the person, such as peridontal disease which is a major cause of tooth loss in adults.
The problems encountered by the elderly with flossing are the inability to manipulate the small dental floss between the teeth and then use the proper motion up and down the tooth on the sides and the back of the tooth to properly clean the plague and food material from behind and between the teeth.
Devices known to applicant to provide power driven dental cleaners are those such as disclosed in the patent to Waters, U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,524, which discloses an attachment to an electric toothbrush which provides oribital movement of dental floss in the end of the tip and distributed from a reel.
The patent to McCabe, U.S. Pat. No. 3,667,483, discloses a dental floss device which reciprocates the dental floss along the longitudinal axis of the length of the dental floss.
The patent to Warner, U.S. Pat. No. 3,759,274, discloses a device for using a strand of dental floss which reciprocates the dental floss between two ends which will move the floss transversely across the tooth.
The patent to Brien, U.S. Pat. No. 3,847,167, discloses a reciprocating dental floss device which moves the floss across the tooth and reciprocates it along the longitudinal axis of the floss.
To properly use dental floss, the dental floss must be taunt and movement must be up and down in a relatively vertical motion relative to the tooth.